joyful wickedness: thus are things well matched.

  I want to have goblins about me, for I am courageous. The courage
which scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblins- it wanteth
to laugh.

  I no longer feel in common with you; the very cloud which I see
beneath me, the blackness and heaviness at which I laugh- that is your
thunder-cloud.

  Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward
because I am exalted.

  Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?

  He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic
plays and tragic realities.

  Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive- so wisdom wisheth us;
she is a woman, and ever loveth only a warrior.

  Ye tell me, "Life is hard to bear." But for what purpose should ye
have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening?

  Life is hard to bear: but do not affect to be so delicate! We are
all of us fine sumpter asses and she-asses.

  What have we in common with the rose-bud, which trembleth because
a drop of dew hath formed upon it?

  It is true we love life; not because we are wont to live, but
because we are wont to love.

  There is always some madness in love. But there is always, also,
some method in madness.

  And to me also, who appreciate life, the butterflies, and
soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them amongst us, seem most to enjoy
happiness.

  To see these light, foolish, pretty, lively little sprites flit
about- that moveth Zarathustra to tears and songs.

  I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.

  And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound,
solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall.

  Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the
spirit of gravity!

  I learned to walk; since then have I let myself run. I learned to
fly; since then I do not need pushing in order to move from a spot.

  Now am I light, now do I fly; now do I see myself under myself.
Now there danceth a God in me.-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

                 8. The Tree on the Hill

  ZARATHUSTRA's eye had perceived that a certain youth avoided him.
And as he walked alone one evening over the hills surrounding the town
called "The Pied Cow," behold, there found he the youth sitting
leaning against a tree, and gazing with wearied look into the
valley. Zarathustra thereupon laid hold of the tree beside which the
youth sat, and spake thus:

  "If I wished to shake this tree with my hands, I should not be
able to do so.

  But the wind, which we see not, troubleth and bendeth it as it
listeth. We are sorest bent and troubled by invisible hands."

  Thereupon the youth arose disconcerted, and said: "I hear
Zarathustra, and just now was I thinking of him!" Zarathustra
answered:

  "Why art thou frightened on that account?- But it is the same with
man as with the tree.

  The more he seeketh to rise into the height and light, the more
vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark
and deep- into the evil."

  "Yea, into the evil!" cried the youth. "How is it possible that thou
hast discovered my soul?"

  Zarathustra smiled, and said: "Many a soul one will never
discover, unless one first invent it."

  "Yea, into the evil!" cried the youth once more.

  "Thou saidst the truth, Zarathustra. I trust myself no longer
since I sought to rise into the height, and nobody trusteth me any
longer; how doth that happen?

  I change too quickly: my to-day refuteth my yesterday. I often
overleap the steps when I clamber; for so doing, none of the steps
pardons me.